


Initial Impressions

by GrrraceUnderfire



Category: Hogan's Heroes (TV 1965)
Genre: Hogan's Heroes Prompt Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26649001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrrraceUnderfire/pseuds/GrrraceUnderfire
Summary: COMPLETED, 9/26Colonel Klink contemplates his actions and his most infuriating prisoner as the American forces close in at the end of the war.This is an experimental approach to the Hogan's Heroes Prompt Week challenge, using the initial letters of each prompt word to start each short verse.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Initial Impressions

**STATE**

**S** omeone had to state the obvious.

 **T** ime was running out.

 **A** rtillery fire rang in the distance

 **T** anks rumbled down the road, shredding the earth beneath their tracks.

 **E** scape was futile. A funny thought, a prison kommandant contemplating escape himself. But no. Stalag 13 was about to meet its fate. It was time to surrender.

**PLACE**

**P** ower was fading. Not only the lights, which twinkled and dimmed as destruction raged, but his sense of control, which had never been strong to begin with.

 **L** ong years of training hadn't prepared him for this moment.

 **A** nxious. He'd always worried, and with good reason. He'd never been up to the demands of a command. It wasn't his place.

 **C** apitulation was shameful. But he had no choice. 

**E** verything had gone to hell. 

**CHIP**

**C** onfined far from combat, life should have been comparatively easy. Most officers were in the fighting. 

**H** ogan, however, made every day a skirmish, a battle, a contest of wills.

 **I** nfuriating, that man was. Chipping away at his authority constantly. And yet somehow Klink felt

 **P** rotected.

**ORGAN**

**O** fficers both, and honorable men. They swear an ethical obligation:

 **R** esist by all means, even in captivity. Klink knows.

 **G** od, country, and freedom first. It is true for the American, anyway.

 **A** llegiance to the Fuhrer is Klink’s first obligation.

 **N** aked loyalty to a charlatan. It sickens Klink, boils his blood, roils his organs.

**VARIATION**

**V** icious ideology packaged as patriotism.

 **A** bominable lies marketed to the masses.

 **R** acial theories spouted like some gruesome gospel.

 **I** ndividuality crushed.

 **A** ny variation from the Aryan standard detested as deviant.

 **T** error and torment for millions.

 **I** magery, pageantry and propaganda,

 **O** rganized to control a

 **N** ation desperate for past glory.

**SANDWICH**

**S** omehow he sees and says nothing.

 **A** shamed and mute.

 **N** umb to reality.

 **D** efeated by his acquiescence.

 **W** arrior no more. A proud tradition is dead.

 **I** ndecisive, he vacillates, sandwiched between pride and hope.

 **C** omplacent or complicit? He knows what Hogan’s up to.

 **H** eroes aren’t really braver. They’re just braver five minutes longer.

**SPY**

**S** ilently, then, he submits. Not to his nation, but to his captive, the spy.

 **P** eace is knowing you are on the right side of history.

 **Y** et love of country survives. A proud German? Yes. But a Nazi? Never.


End file.
